Flawed, but nice Sci-Fi thriller

Rating: 7/10 (14 August 2005)

Michael Bay is well known for his in your face action thrillers, and so it came as something of a surprise to see him direct something like this. The Island is a Sci-Fi thriller that takes influence from the likes of THX-1138 and works more on it's ideas and themes than Bay's trademark action sequences. The film starts off in a Utopian facility where we meet Lincoln Six Echo (Ewan McGreggor) and Jordan Two Delta (Scarlett Johansson), along with a load of other people dressed in white. The people of this facility have been told that a contagious virus has wiped out the population of Earth and they are the only remaining people. The only thing that keeps them going is the promise that 'lottery' winners get to go to a serene paradise known as 'the island'. Lincoln Six Echo smells a rat, however, and after finding out that the facility is really a place where clones of rich people are kept for spare parts, he takes Jordan Two Delta and escapes into the wider world (of many advertisements...) to look for the man he's a clone of, and hope to stay alive.
Once we leave the Utopian facility, the film pretty much follows a standard chase formula, and this is obviously where Michael Bay is much more at home. Cars get smashed and people are dropped from the top of skyscrapers, and it's only then that you know you're in a Michael Bay movie. Usually Bay's daft action gets annoying quickly, but it's OK here because at least it has something behind it. While the action sequences are pretty hollow in terms of emotion; it adds a further level of enjoyment to a movie that has already tested your brain by that point. The cast is really good, with the two leads doing their jobs well and being supported excellently. Steve Buscemi is an actor that needs to be seen more, and his performance is nice; albeit too small. The real standout among the support cast is Djimon Hounsou. He has an incredible style, and it's obvious that Michael Bay thinks so too with all the close up's we're treated to. The Island isn't without it's problems  the music is out of place most of the time, there's an extremely out of place sex scene and the film goes on a bit towards the end, as it could do with being about twenty minutes shorter; but on the whole, this is an enjoyable flick that will entertain and get you thinking. For once, Michael Bay has made something worth seeing.